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Tuesday, 8 January 2019

Mending broken hearts has become a global mission for Israel’s Save a Child’s Heart.

Save a Child’s Heart developed
out of two polar experiences, an inspired idea and a sudden tragedy. Such are
the diverse parents of much that develops in Israel where hope and death
breathe the same air.

In this case, the hope was
Israeli born. Death occurred elsewhere, to the Israeli who created the hope.

The hope was to save the lives of
babies and young children who, through no fault of their own, were destined for
an all too short life, and it grew out of Amram Cohen’s experience as a doctor
serving in the US army in Korea in 1988. His job, his vocation, was the give
hope to local children with heart disease by the application of advanced
surgery, something that was far too expensive for kids living in poverty and in
surroundings far too remote from accessible medical facilities and advanced
surgery.

Amram’s experience brought him in
contact with a network of doctors working in developing countries who, without
the major assistance of a nation such as the United States, would be fighting a
losing battle in trying to save young lives to heart disease and dysfunction.

Dr. Amram Cohen moved to Israel
in 1992 determined to utilize the Jewish State’s advanced medical facilities to
try to save children’s lives, children that were suffering from heart
malfunctions in locations distant from Israel, including those that had no
official contact with the Jewish State.

To the people that loved him, his
family and the medical teams that worked around him, Dr. Amram Cohen was
affectionately known as “Ami.”

After bringing three Ethiopian
children to Israel for treatment in 1996, Ami opened his rolodex of medical
professionals and personal contacts to create a volunteer organization to help
desperately sick children to whom the chance of life was either not available
or unaffordable.

Through a new foundation, he
began operating Save a Child’s Heart.He
and other surgeons began treating children with congenital heart conditions
mainly at Israel’s Wolfson’s Medical Center in Holon on the outskirts of Tel
Aviv.

Children were medivacked into the
Jewish State from Nigeria, Tanzania, Congo, Moldova, Russia, Ghana, Vietnam,
Ecuador, Jordan, and the Palestinian Authority. From the Gaza Strip more than 150 children came into Israel for medical
treatment.
On occasions, Ami and his
medical team flew to China and Ethiopia to operate on sixty children too sick
to travel.

Hundreds of children were gifted
new healthier lives by Dr. Cohen and those who donated and helped the growing
global organization of Save a Child’s Heart.

Then tragedy struck. Ami was
climbing Africa’s Mount Kilimanjaro with his daughter, Tali, when he was struck
down by altitude sickness. He died on August 16, 2001. He was 47 years old.

Save a Child’s Heart could have
died with him, but his dedicated team, and many who shared his dream and
supported the foundation, determined to keep Ami’s project alive.

Since his untimely death, Save a
Child’s Heart has continued and grown. As well as rescuing children with
life-threatening heart conditions, it teaches medical personnel in developing
nations the much needed surgical techniques required to treat sick children.

Mainstream media channels began
reporting on how a small Israeli charity was attempting to heal children with
serious cardiac conditions in unlikely countries.

On December 11, 2007, ABC
reported, “Israeli charity saving Iraqi children one heart at a time.”CNN reported on May 20, 2013, “Taking
heart amid Syria’s carnage” after a 4-year-old Syrian girl, who would have
died without treatment, was saved by the Israeli Save a Child’s Heart surgeons
and medical team in the intensive care unit of Wolfson Medical Center.Syria was the 45th
nation whose children have been given the chance of a new lease on life by the
Israeli charity. Israeli medical teams regularly save the lives of small Palestinian children, including those from the Gaza Strip.

Mending broken hearts has become
a global mission for Israel’s Save a Child’s Heart.

In recognition of their
remarkable work, for the first time ever an Israeli NGO received the
prestigious United Nations Population Award. It was presented to three of Save
a Child’s Heart’s leading physicians, Doctors Lior Sasson, Akiva Tamir, and
Sion Houri, by the UN Secretary-General, Antonio Guterres, in New York.

Some of the projects scheduled
for early 2019 include an SACH medical mission to Tanzania. The team will be
performing lifesaving catheterization surgery with their German partners from
the Deutsches Herzzentrum Berlin in Dar es Salaam.

Israeli President, Reuven Rivlin,
visited the SACH team at Wolfson Hospital on January 14, 2019, and embraced the
children receiving treatment there at the time of his visit. President Rivlin
was accompanied by several ambassadors on his visit.

“We often
quote the saying ‘he who saves a single life is as if he has saved the whole
world’. Behind each heart is not just a child, but a family, friends and
community – a whole world,”President
Rivlin said. He thanked all those involved with Save a Child’s Heart.

“You know
no borders, no race, no religion and no gender. You give your hearts to
children in need. It is no surprise that "Save a Child's Heart" has
been recognized by the UN. Dr. Ami Cohen, the founder of Save a Child's Heart,
died tragically. But you, the wonderful staff and volunteers of this project,
keep his mission alive.”

On February 13, a medical mission
will go to Zanzibar to screen and diagnose children together with their local
partners at the Mnasi Mmoja hospital in Zanzibar.

Save a Child's Heart succeeds through the kind and generous donors, large and small. It is through them that so many children's lives have been spared and improved by willing Israeli medical teams.

As part of their important
find-raising efforts a gala concert will be held in Jerusalem and in Tel Aviv
on February 6th and 7th featuring the acclaimed American
pianist, Emily Bear, who will perform with the 100-piece World Doctors
Orchestra for the first time in Israel. Popular Israeli singers, Shiri Maimon, Ester Rada and
Avraham Tal, will also appear.
Other fund-raising events are
taking place in the United States. On February 9, the popular Israeli
mentalist, Lior Suchard, will entertain an audience at Los Angeles at an
evening gala in the Royce Hall of UCLA. On May 6, the Washington DC chapter of
SACH will be holding a dinner gala at Bnei Israel Synagogue in Rockville,
Maryland. This event will honor the founders of Save a Child’s Heart.

Jeffrey Hoffman, Co-President of
SACH-US, told me, “Save a Child’s Heart is an amazing organization. This
year we are celebrating the milestone of 5,000 children’s lives saved since the
organization was founded by Dr. Ami Cohen in 1996. The dedication and
commitment of the Israeli surgeons, medical team, staff, and volunteers from
many countries is a testament to the Tikun Olam philosophy that to save one
life is to save the world.”

Jeffrey Hoffman is right. What is
too little known is that Israel is a shining light of Tikun Olam, the
Jewish philosophy of Repair the World, in so many ways, and none shines
brighter than the wonderful work being done by Save a Child’s Heart.